Herein lies pearls of wisdom, answers to questions and background information that is constantly being updated. Look here often

Let's start with the cornerstone course, The 5.5.5

The 5.5.5 is the first course anyone who wishes to operate as a professional course takes.  It may be a course that experienced coaches take to get a refresher in the grass roots or to gain CCE’s, but that is like 2% of the audience that enrolls.

The 5.5.5 is the first 20.5 hours of training on their way to gain 116.9 hours with us to qualify to apply for an ACC credential.  It is the first of 7 programed experiences. With each experience set to build on the previous.

Example: Although there is one slide in the 5.5.5 that speaks to Agreement, it is not critical content (at this point). Agreement gets better coverage in CF, ACSP and Mentoring.

It should never be miss-construed that taking the 5.5.5 will make you a coach.  In balance as a trainer, we have to hold back from wanting to give it all to them in the first course and throttle back our expectations.

Although we provide much more content in the 5.5.5, the emphasis of the learning and expected exit performance is on the following priorities:

• 1. Learn and practice to become proficient in the Coaching Exchange
  2. Learn and practice skill of Listening
  3. Learn and practice skill of Questioning
  4. Learn and practice skill of Action Planning
  5. Receive peer level feedback on the use of the above four elements
  6. Know the 5 Guiding Principles and how they apply to a coach
  7. Become familiar with the Requesting and Encouraging skills

The role of the Fast-Track on the other hand is in fact to provide an experience that gets them from where they are to be ACC ready.

How the experience builds in Fast-Track.

1. 1. 5.5.5 – intro to the definition, distinction between roles (applications) , The 5-step process, 5 core skills, 5 guiding principles.
   2. Coach Fundamentals – Introduce the ICF, work with the 8 ICF competencies, deeper dive on the 5 cores skills, start adding in the professional mechanics (like agreement, confidentiality, self care, bias, agenda …)
   3. Personal Groundwork for Coaching – Deeper dive into self care, bias and integrating the 5 guiding principles into how they show up.
   4. Advanced Coaching Skills Practicum – The place to integrate all these concepts and disparate skills into their own personal style and approach to coaching, with a STRONG lens on demonstrating their style in alignment to the ICF Competencies.
   5. Mentoring – The place to gain specific and personal feedback on how to further refine their coaching approach with a STRONG lens on demonstrating their style in alignment to the ICF Competencies.

      At this point, they qualify as a Cotbx Certified Graduate.

   6. Credentialing Success Course – gets them ready to produce a recording, get that recording assessed and walk them through the ICF application.
   7. Credentialing Assessment Prep Class – is design to get them ready to write the ICF Exam.

   At this point, they qualify as ICF Level 1 Complete. And may apply to the ICF to take the Exam for their ACC Credential.

    

5.5.5 Observer form – introduced as a learning aid in 555,  Used in CF as observer tool and guide. File Format: PDF

Competency Observer Guide – available as resource in 555 and ACSP, used in CF for self-evaluation exercise, Used in ACSP as self-assessment exercise. Used in Mentoring Self-study course. File Format: DOC  PDF

Mentor Coach Observation - available as resource in CF, was used in ASCP for self-evaluation form-REPLACED with Observer Guide. Given to Mentors to use with their Mentees. File Format: DOC  PDF

ICF Core Competencies 555 Elements – used in CF, ACSP and suggested for Mentors to refer to. File Format:  PDF

ICF Code-of-ethics – available as a resource in CF, ACSP and suggested for Mentors to refer to. File Format:  PDF

Performance Evaluation Feedback Form – Available form Lerae. 

Simple Paring for Skills Practices Template  DOWNLOAD

Complex ACSP Coaching Assignments  DOWNLOAD

No. Our take on anyone recording the live sessions is a violation of confidentiality, Copywrite and good coaching ethics.   

Here is an April 2023 email that helps explain the actions you can take, should a student show up with AI activated..

Dear Faculty.

Some great tools and timesavers are coming out as the result of the burst of AI into the mainstream.

We ask that you do not allow the use of those tools that record, transcribe, or artificially generate interactive responses while you are in class and/or on Zoom.

This means if you see a user, you do not know, we ask you remove the user from your room.    (HOW? See three dots (top right) beside the uninvited guest and select remove or report)

For a more detailed explanation on the options below, see this Zoom article under the section: “How to Manage Participants in a Zoom Meeting.”   https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005759423-Managing-participants-in-a-meeting

• Put On Hold: If the waiting room is not enabled, you'll see this option to place the participant on hold.
• Remove: Dismiss a participant from the meeting. They won't be able to rejoin unless you allow participants to rejoin.
• Report: Allows you to report a user to Zoom's Trust and Safety team. You will be able to select which user to report and provide details about the problem. You can also upload evidence, such as screenshots. 

An additional approach is to activate your waiting room and only admit those students you recognize. 

Should this get too far out of hand, the article above gives you additional counter measures like: Lock the Room, prevent users from changing their names and a variety of other controls you can enable. I seriously doubt we will ever have to invoke this level of scrutiny. Just know you have the permission to use what you need to maintain the safety of your room.

Heads Up: We are exploring using AI tools like this for our 1:1 Mentoring engagements and future courseware, however, our use of it will need to meet or exceed the ethical guidelines before we implement such a feature. We are not saying you can never use AI tools, just that those tools that record, transcribe, or artificially generate interactive responses are not to be used in our classes. (as the participant permissions needed to use the tool are not in place)  

AI is really cool and I expect many more folks will start playing with it.

In all our courses and all we do at ICG, we take 15 specific elements of communication: 

• Five are associated with the process of having a conversation.
• Five are core skills at doing the communication.
• And Five are the mindset for an effective communicator.

In the 5.5.5 we package these 15 elements into the context of having a coaching style conversation.

In the Purposeful Conversations we package these 15 elements into the context of having a Manager style conversation

Same 15 elements, same three categories (Process, Skills, Mindset) in different applications.

In the coach training business, it is easy to believe we have discovered exclusive skills unique to coaches, but they are not. They are just skills, when used well, allow coaches to be effective.  These are fifteen universal communication skills that we apply to the coaching context.

So, we are in the process of not teaching pure coaching skills, but the application of those universal skills into a very narrow role, we call coaching. The ICF defines it as the role of the professional coach. Goes without saying then, PC is the application of those skills into the role of a Manager/Leader/Influencer…

Here is a video that may further explain the positioning,  

Answer: For Fast Track students, it is the date of their first 5.5.5 class. (Note: OR in the odd situation the 555 was not their first course, then the start of whatever Fast Track course they took first)

How the ICF says it:

Feb 07, 2024

ICF defines the start of coach-specific education as any course with at least 30 hours of which at least 24 hours are in ICF Core Competencies instruction. Eligible courses can be ICF-accredited or non –ICF-accredited. This means in order for a coach to begin counting their client coaching experience, it is a MUST to have completed a course with minimum 30+ total hours, and not multiple certificates from the same provider. Both ICF Credentials & Standards and Coaching Education are in agreeance here and will ensure all staff have a more comprehensive understanding of this requirement to ensure we are all sharing the same information. 

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Rockelle Ward
Director of Global Accreditation
International Coaching Federation
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There is then the Mentor Coaching 101 Class that is a 1 hour session hosted by Lerae that is in "Week 9" of ACSP. The reason we say week 9 of ACSP is because it is 1 week exactly after their last ACSP Class.   In this course Lerae covers what Mentoring is, how to get the most from it and the strategic thinking on when to start the mentoring support.

Watch the December 20 live session.

Not to be confused by the MENTORING COURSE.  The online mentoring Course that is found in MY COURSES section will show up on each student's MY COURSES page around week 4 of ACSP. 

In week 4 of Advanced Coaching Skills Practicums the students get an email sent out to them with information about the Mentor Coaching Program. They can access the Mentoring Course Tile on their "My Course" page (Seen below) 

Open the Mentoring Course 

In that course they get a brief explanation of what Mentoring is, They get access to all of the Mentor Coaches Profiles as well as they get the Mentor Coaching Selection form.

On that form the students select 1 Mentor. This course is self paced and will take them maybe 20 minutes.